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Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Pepperminty Goodness

This weekend a friend of mine held a cookie swap. What a good idea that was! Whip up eight dozen cookies, hang out with friends for a few hours enjoying sangria and then take home a dozen cookies in eight different varieties! So my holiday baking if officially finished. My friend, Miranda, and I made these great cookies and packaged them in little fabric bags. Having a serger made the bags so easy to make. I pulled some fabric out of my stash and had all eight bags made in less than an hour. (I cut strips 6x24 inches, roll hemmed the short ends and then serged the long sides together and viola! I had a quick and cute cookie bag.) Here's the recipe we used:

Peppermint Sugar Cookies

1 cup butter
1 2/3 cups sugar
2 eggs
1 T milk or cream
2 tsp peppermint extract
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
3 cups flour

1 cup crushed candy canes (about 2 boxes)

Cream the butter and sugar and then beat in the eggs. Add in the peppermint extract and the milk. In a separate bowl mix the flour, baking powder and the salt. Crush the candy canes. I put them inside a ziplock bag and beat them with the rolling pin. You want very small pieces. Bigger pieces will melt and stick to the cookie sheet. We fought this problem by using parchment paper. It worked beautifully.

Slowly add the flour mixture to the butter / sugar mixture and beat until the dough pulls away from the of the bowl. Scoop out some dough and roll it into a ball. Roll the dough ball in sugar and then use the bottom of a glass to flatten the cookie. Sprinkle colored sugar on top if you wish. Bake at 350 for about 13 minutes. Let the cookies cool for two minutes on the cookie sheet and then move to a wire rack. Makes about four dozen cookies.

8 comments:

  1. They sound yummy.

    I've already shopped for my Christmas cooking (and blown the budget too - $70!!) so I won't be trying these. I will be posting about my christmas cookery next week, though.

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  2. mmmmmm.... going to show THIS recipe to my hubby!!!!! hopefully he'll bake em' up for us!

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  3. Yum! I will have to try them!
    Have a great Christmas.

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  4. Sounds yummy! And the cookie swap sounds great. I've never done one, but always thouht it sounded great! Not to mention, 8 different kinds of cookies - what could be better!

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  5. Oh, my, these cookies look scrumptious...thank you, Liz, for sharing the recipe. I didn't know you lived on Mackinac Island...how lucky you are to live in such a beautiful place...you must be so grateful to live there!!

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  6. This brought back memories for me of Christmases when I was a kid. Mom, my brother, sister, and I used to make candy cane shaped cookies with a recipe much like yours, but we separated the dough in half and put red food coloring in on half. We rolled out the dough into thin red and white snakes about half inch thick and 3 1/2 inches long. Roll in crushed up candy cane bits. Twist the two snakes together and bend over one end into candy cane shape. Bake.
    Now, guess what Frankie and I will be baking this weekend :-) Thanks for the memories!

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  7. Hey Liz! I just came across these today (two years later from when you posted, LOL!) and I baked them today...let me just say...YUM-O!!!
    I LOVED THEM!
    And the hint about parchment paper...EXCELLENT! I made the first batch w/o it because I couldn't find it, & they stuck as you said...then I finally found my parchment paper and VOILA! Perfection! They lifted right off! Yummy!

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